


For All Our Mechanical Souls

by for_t2



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alien Planet, Dystopia, F/F, Machines, Neighbors, Poverty, Science Fiction, Soldiers, Strangers to Lovers, Writer's Block
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23251642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: Bryn was always meant to be a soldier, until she found herself stranded offworld, and until she found a fight worth fighting for
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Kudos: 1





	For All Our Mechanical Souls

If there was a centre to all the worlds, Bryn thought, this was it. The endless machinery stretching beyond the curve of the horizon humming under clouds of smog, a world that glowed with the heat of billions, of trillions of people. But if there was a centre to her world, Bryn thought, it was the little nook of space on the 142nd floor of O-Block 1446 that she called home.

She didn’t do much in that corner. There wasn’t enough room to eat. All there was were her (slightly squeaky) cot and the small sliver of window. Her tiny moment of peace, of rest. The place where it was just her and her dreams.

What she couldn’t figure out, however, was why there was a piece of paper stuck to the door of her apartment. It had just appeared one day when she came back from her shift in the machines. And none of the other apartments had it. And no one had told her anything about it. She figured it probably wasn’t important. Not that important. But she still left it there. Just in case. Just-- 

Someone snorted behind her.

“What?” Someone she had never seen before. Someone who looked… Oh. Her neighbour. The one nobody ever saw. The one whose light always seemed to be on and whose walls scratched in the middle of the night. The one who looked like she’d look absolutely wild even if she didn’t look absolutely drunk.

“You’re still here?”

“I live here.” Bryn tried not to take a step back at the sneer in her neighbour’s voice. It would be too easy to get into stance, fists raised. But where’s the glory in fighting someone’s who’s barely standing up? “Do you?”

“I love this planet.”

Bryn wasn’t sure she would go that far. But the only way to get into her planet’s fleet on a second try was to have experience offworld, and, well, you take the opportunities you can. “Good for you.”

“It is.” As much as her neighbour lingered on the letters, her drawl really didn’t make her voice sound any more attractive. If that was the intended effect. Which it usually was. “I’d tell you try it sometime, but…”

“But what?” She glanced back briefly at the flick of the neighbour’s head. To the paper stuck on her door. “I can try anything I want to.”

The neighbour somehow managed to snort twice at the same time. “Good for you.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Bryn never backed down from a fight. There was no glory in surrender.

The neighbour’s eyes flicked back behind Bryn. And back to Bryn. And back to the paper. “Oh.”

“What?”

“You’re from on of those planets.” It was remarkable how different her voice was without the sneer. How, even with the slight slur of drugs, it was more monotonous than the grey sky above them. “It’s just words.” How, beneath the flatness there was maybe the tiniest bump of sadness.

Just words. Bryn wasn’t sure how to answer that. Wasn’t sure what to say, even to herself. “You can read that?” So she opted for a sneer of her own.

For a few seconds, the neighbour said nothing. Then she sighed. “I’ve written better.” She staggered past Bryn. Ripped the paper down. “Valued customer, district management has been…” She trailed off. “You’re being evicted in four days.”

*

Bryn was almost relieved when she spotted the familiar sneer. “It’s you.”

“Yes!” Bryn almost cried out. “It’s me. And it’s you.” A good soldier has to keep her cool in every situation on every battlefield. “It is you, right?” A good soldier also has to make sure she’s aware of her surroundings.

“What are you doing here?”

“I…” She couldn’t stop noticing the words. All the lines on all the signs, the stickers on the machines, the smudges on the walls, sometimes she wasn’t even sure which bits were words and which bits were just random streaks of soot. And the more she walked, the more she tried to find the district housing office, the more she realised she had no idea where she was. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here.” Her neighbour seemed as impressed as she had the night before.

“Really?” Not that Bryn knew where here was, or what the machines in this section did, but like her section, like the rest of this planet, it was machines all the way down. “I thought you did something… fancier?” It occurred to her that she didn’t really know what the machines in her own section did either.

“Because I can read?”

“You said you can write.” In fact, she didn’t really know what this world did. Sure, there were a few of the usual exports, but this number of machines, these many workers… 

“Just because I can doesn’t mean that I do.”

“But…” When a soldier sees an opportunity, she has to take it. That was the rule, right? “I don’t know.”

The neighbour snorted again. Turned her attention back to her small bowl of lumpy food. But Bryn didn’t move away. Every turn she had taken so far had just led her to more turns. “You’re still here.”

And a good soldier never shows weakness. Is never supposed to show weakness. “I think I’m lost.”

The neighbour rolled her eyes. “Course you are.” Even if her voice lacked bite, flipped back to its flatness. She looked over at the machines chugging away. At the workers trundling back from their food. At the greasy stains on Bryn’s cheeks. She sighed. “District Accommodations Board, eh?” Pushed herself slowly to her feet when Bryn nodded. “Come on.”

*

There was always something special about the view out of the window at night. If during the day it was all grey buildings against a greyer sky, at night it was lights against darkness. But after hours spent in line then hours spent waiting to fill out a form then milliseconds waiting to be rejected, it hard to feel like it was her view anymore.

The corner felt too small, the walls too close too together, the little patch of mold on the ceiling a little too hanging. Even she knew it was exactly the same, it didn’t feel like the place she had grown so used to.

“Hey.” She was almost glad to see her neighbour, even if was the middle of the night and she could barely think. Even if she was a little lost. “Hey!” Even if her neighbour was sitting on the railing of one of the many bridges between the buildings.

“I don’t know if it’s good to see you or not.” The neighbour mumbled with the same old drunken slur. “So, hey.”

“You need to come down.”

“Don’t worry.” Her lips quirked in what was almost a crooked smile as she patted the railing. “It’s my friend.”

“It’s your friend?” Maybe her neighbour wasn’t exactly her enemy, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to get into a fight with a fanatic. “It’s not a person. It’s not alive. It’s a piece of metal!” And maybe that wasn’t the only reason she was scared.

“Everything’s alive if you look at it the right way.” She let out a laugh. “Come on.” Waited for Bryn to walk up next to her. “I thought I’d love how alive this world is. All the people. All the rumours and answered questions. Everything.”

“What happened?”

“I said some things shouldn’t have to someone I cared about.” She let another flat laugh. “Thought I’d be able to find her here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You can’t find something that doesn’t want to be found.”

A good soldier always finds her target. Always, without exceptions. “I’m still sorry.” Bryn only had two days left. Two days. She hoped there was still someone waiting for her.

“You know,” the neighbour sighed, the same way she had before. “Have I told you I was a writer?”

“Yeah.”

For a few moments, the neighbour said nothing. “Every time I write another character, I lose a bit of my soul.” She waved vaguely at the skyline ahead of them. “It just runs away from me, and I don’t know where it ends up, I don’t know what it becomes, if people do anything to it, if…” She grabbed Bryn’s hand. Brought it close.

“If?” It barely came out in a whisper.

“Sometimes,” the neighbour finally whispered back. “Sometimes I don’t even know if she was real or if she was just another part of me that should never have been let go.”

*

A good five hours before her shift, Bryn was woken by a pounding on her thin door. By a neighbour barely standing upright.

“You haven’t figured this shit out.”

“Um,” Bryn wasn’t sure if she wanted to interpret that vague wave properly. Wasn’t sure if she could be ready. “No?”

The neighbour nodded. “My door’s always open.”

*

Thirteen days. Thirteen days, and Bryn was ready to strangle Anastasia (her neighbour even had a stupid name). She didn’t know when to sleep. She didn’t know when to eat. She didn’t know when to shut up (or to talk).

Bryn really didn’t know why she still smiled every time she saw her.

“Okay, okay.” Anastasia shifted slightly on her railing. “And what’s this letter?”

“It’s a… B?”

“And this one?” Somehow, even Anastasia’s flat voice still managed to up itself by a notch.

“It’s a…” This was stupid. Really stupid. A good soldier… “You know I was supposed to be a solider?”

“Don’t change the subject.” Anastasia jabbed a finger down on the paper. “You’re so close.”

“And I was talking to some people.” Talking was a strong word for it, but she had been looking around for a new corner, and maybe she got lost a few times and maybe she didn’t really find something that was exactly appropriate, but she had noticed a few of those papers on a few doors.

“Talking is overrated.”

“I’m not the only who’s had a situation.” Far from the only one. “Maybe there’s something we could do about it.” Maybe. A big maybe. “There’s been some rumours.” Even more maybes. But if those maybes had any truth to them… “How stupid is it that I want to go to war with the district board?”

Anastasia stared at her. The deepest stare Bryn might’ve ever seen. And for the first time Bryn had seen, she smiled, all crooked and cracked teeth and just a little manic. “Stupid?” She grabbed Bryn. Kissed her. 

And, somehow, Bryn couldn’t stop smiling. “You think?”

Anastasia nodded. “Maybe I could write one more story.”


End file.
